


great minds think alike

by restless5oul



Series: yesterday we were just children [4]
Category: Formula 1 RPF, GP2 Series RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Clueless Boys, Developing Friendships, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Mild Language, New POV, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Touchy-Feely, a lot of implied relationships, more bonding!, my attempt at humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restless5oul/pseuds/restless5oul
Summary: a zombie apocalypse leads to boredom. and boredom leads to speculation about whom your friends may or may not be banging/want to bang.





	great minds think alike

**Author's Note:**

> meh. this is silly. but i had fun with it.
> 
> other stories in which i am not funny.

The more time Charles spent with the three boys, the more he felt like he should be getting to know them better, but some things about them never seem to make sense, and only ever served to confuse him. Not just the jokes that Jüri told which only ever seemed to make himself laugh, or Juan’s mood swings, or Mick’s penchant for privacy. Something about the relationship between the three of them was deeply confusing to him.

While he appreciated that they were incredibly close. And he could tell from the inside jokes he didn’t understand no matter how many times they explained them to him. He didn’t think he’d seen a group of friends so…intimate before. 

Admittedly, this observation was usually reserved for Juan and Jüri alone, the physical affection only doled out to Mick on occasion, and to Charles even less so. He had never had a particular aversion to touch, nor would he have described himself as cold, yet sometimes he wondered whether it was only him who found it odd. Mick never seemed to raise so much as an eyebrow at his friends’ behaviour.

There was the time Charles had come running into the room, after hearing an almighty crash from the kitchen, where he had been trying, and mostly failing, to make lunch. He half expected to see a broken window, and a horde of zombies descending upon his friends. However, he was spared from such a sight. Instead he saw one of the tables had been knocked over, two chairs brought down with it, one of the legs actually broken, and everything which had been sat atop the table was now lying spread across the floor.

Charles saw Mick first, who was sitting at the other side of the room, staring at the scene in front of him looking mostly nonplussed, but also a little bit amused. He found the other two boys in the midst of the wreckage, Juan lying on his back, Jüri sat with his knees either side of him, hands on each side of his face, leaning over his friend. Neither of them were saying anything and there was something in their body language and facial expressions that made Charles feel as though he was intruding upon something he shouldn’t be. A weird kind of tension filled the room, like Mick and Charles were observers to a scene they weren’t actually a part of.

“Is, uh, everything alright?” he asked, feeling awkward for breaking the silence.

“Just peachy,” Jüri looked up and shot a wide smile his way, seemingly oblivious to (what would have ordinarily been) the compromising position he’d been caught in.

“I would like it on the record however, that Jüri started it, and he has to clean up the mess,” Juan called blindly, not actually able to see Charles.

“That’s not true!” Jüri protested, shrieking as Juan’s fingers dug into his sides, and he rolled off his friend, pushing him away.

“Nah, he’s right this time,” Mick agreed, nodding. Charles got the impression that he was the only one who appreciated the weirdness of the situation. Charles shared a look with the German before he slipped back into the kitchen, shaking his head in despair at the idiots he had somehow ended up living with.

Then there was the time that the four of them had been sat in the big room on the second floor, crowded around the piano like they did on so many evenings now. Charles and Mick were sat on the stool, Charles attempting to teach him how to play. The main problem being that he had very little musical ability. Charles had his arms hooked around Mick’s, playing the simple chords and notes, trying to get him to copy them.

“God I’m terrible,” Mick laughed, before resuming his state of concentration; his eyes narrowed, his pink tongue sticking out from his lips. The series of notes he played were technically correct, and in the right order, there was just a clumsiness to his rhythm and a distinct lack of timing.

“Yeah, you kinda are,” Charles laughed too, earning himself a bump on the shoulder that nearly knocked him off the stool seeing as it wasn’t really big enough for the two of them.

“Can you stop flirting and actually play something halfway decent?” Juan called over.

“That’s your job,” Mick told Charles, getting up, ignoring the first half of Juan’s sentence.

Charles thought the comment was rather rich when he looked over and saw Juan had his arms around Jüri who was all but cradled in his lap; his legs stretched across two chairs, the back of his head resting against Juan’s chest. Again, he was struck by how intimate it seemed, though no one else seemed to be aware of this. Least of all Juan and Jüri themselves, who just stared at him, waiting for him to play. He watched for one more second as Jüri ran his fingers along Juan’s forearm, searching for some kind of reaction from anyone else in the room, but failing to find one.

Sighing, he struck up a tune instead, trying hard not to stare at the two boys to his right in case they thought him rude or crazy. It was going well until Mick decided that he wanted to turn the song into a duet, sending them all into fits of laughter.

While most of these occasions were fairly casual, Charles didn’t think it was possible that he was the only one that saw the tenderness between the two boys, particularly the protectiveness Juan seemed to feel where Jüri was concerned. Whilst it was very easy to feel that way about the Estonian, the way Juan treated him sometimes was so different to his usual banter and moodiness that Charles couldn’t help but take notice.

Like when Jüri had overreacted about a splinter from the table he had supposedly broken, instead of making fun of him, Juan had just let him squeeze his hand while Mick pulled it out. Or when he had let Jüri nap with his head on his lap when he’d fallen asleep after dinner. It wasn’t the same as the hugs, or the pats on back that the rest of them received and gave.

The need to know if it was just the way they were, or whether they were something more bugged Charles more than it would have had he had less free time on his hands. Boredom gave way to curiosity, and in the end he couldn’t help but ask.

“Mick can I ask you a question?”

The two of them had travelled about half a mile to the nearest corner shop, having cleared out the nearest supermarket of their non-perishables, and having no desire to return to the place where Charles had first met Mick. The small building stank of rotten food, that forced them both to pinch their noses until they got used to the stench. Mick was crouched down, in the process of filling up the rucksack with tins, while Charles stood keeping watch, the shotgun held securely in his hands – having eventually gotten round to his lesson with Jüri and finding out that he wasn’t as terrible as he might have assumed. He was good enough at least to accompany one of the other boys on their trips out, though Mick did carry with him the fire axe they had found in the kitchen. Charles was somewhat grateful to get out of the confines of the hotel, but looking at the wasteland his home had become made him uneasy.

“Yeah sure,” Mick nodded, not looking up as he cleared the shelves into the two bags that sat by his feet.

“Are Juan and Jüri you know…” Charles made something kind of vague gesture, “Together?”

Mick’s head whipped up to look at him, looking a little bemused. He put the last tin in their bags, zipping them up, handing one for Charles to sling across his back, and getting to his feet before he answered. The bag was lighter than their usual haul, and Charles’ heart sank, knowing this would mean another trip sooner rather than later.

“You’re asking me this now?” was all he said, shaking his head, as the two of them carefully tried to exit the shop, making as little noise as possible, stepping over the broken shelves and shattered glass that covered the floor.

“Well this is the only time when it’s just us, I can hardly ask when they’re around.”

Mick just shrugged as though to say ‘fair enough’. He looked as though he was thinking about his answer, rubbing his chin with his free hand as he searched for the right words.

“No they’re not. But…” he started, but stopped himself from elaborating further.

“But?” Charles prompted, feeling a little like a terrible gossip, but he didn’t hold it against himself, sometimes they were pushed for topics of conversation.

“But I think they’d like to be,” Mick finally conceded, “I’ve never asked either of them.”

“Oh.”

“I dunno. Now isn’t exactly the best time or place for budding romance,” Mick said with a small laugh, though the smile on his face was more contemplative. Charles wondered if because he’d known them so long he’d gotten used to it, and had stopped thinking about what it really meant.

“Nah I guess you’re right,” Charles agreed.

They walked a bit further, the two of them lost in their thoughts, the tins they carried on their backs clinking together softly, their trudging footsteps in time with the other.

“Sometimes I wish they’d get on with it though. It’s bloody annoying watching them obviously in love with each other,” Mick said, with another shake of his head.

“It’s sort of cute though. In a way.”

“Yeah sort of,” Mick snorted.

***

Jüri’s back ached. He was lying, almost entirely horizontal on one the old fashioned sofas they had claimed as beds, his feet propped up in Juan’s lap, his head slightly elevated by a cushion he’d wedged beneath it. In one hand he held a pen, and in the other, one of those crossword puzzle books that only old people seemed to buy. Reading might have suited Mick and Charles as a way to pass the time, but he didn’t seem to have it in himself to get lost in the incredibly old, dusty, and immeasurably boring books that they read through again and again. So when he discovered the unopened, unblemished puzzle book in one of the shops behind the counter, he’d snatched it up – the only viable form of entertainment he had found – taking the pen that lay beside it with him. It made him feel a little uneasy to read the writing on the side of the bright pink and blue pen that read “happy birthday!” but he tried not to dwell on it.

“Five letters, Roman God of the underworld,” he said, out loud, hoping the boy that he was using as a footstool might have the answer he did not. He chewed the end of the pen thoughtfully against his lips, looking up at Juan.

“Do you think Mick wants to fuck Charles?”

His footstool's sudden, off topic, frank question caught Jüri off guard, making him nearly choke on the pen. Coughing and stammering, he swung he feet off Juan’s lap, pushing himself into an upright position so he could gawk at his friend close up.

“What the fuck?!” he spluttered, looking comically bemused.

“I’m just thinking,” Juan shrugged.

“Well why are you thinking about that?!”

“I dunno I just am!”

The two of them lapsed into silence, Jüri’s crossword forgotten, lying on the floor where it had fallen, abandoned. Jüri hated himself for considering it, but once the shock of Juan’s bluntness had worn off, it wasn’t as ludicrous a notion as it had first appeared to be.

While Juan clearly resisted, all three of them got on, and liked the Frenchman, who had inserted himself into their lives like he’d been there all along. Maybe it was the extremeness of their situation, but it was easy to feel like they’d known each other for years. Jüri liked his quiet steadiness, and he liked his piano playing a hell of a lot more than he liked Juan and Mick’s singing. And it never failed to make him chuckle when he would shrug, all pouted lips and raised eyebrows, in that way that him and Juan had agreed was very French.

There was the fact that each night as Jüri fell asleep, the last sight he saw was usually Charles and Mick sat together at the table, reading in the low light of the lamp, sometimes exchanging the odd comment that he couldn’t quite hear. Still, he had never dreamt of reading into that. Maybe there was something in the look on Mick’s face whenever Charles said his name, or patted him on the back. But he could have been searching for something that wasn’t really there.

“I mean, I wouldn’t blame him if he did,” Juan eventually said, looking contemplative.

“Why not?”

“Charles is pretty good looking, plus he’s French, and you know what they say…”

“Hey!” the back of Jüri’s hand slapped against Juan’s upper arm, making him flinch, and looking at his best friend incredulously.

“What was that for?!”

Jüri just shrugged, folding his arms in case he felt the urge to hit the boy to his right again. In hindsight it had probably overreacted a little bit. But the idea of Juan talking about Charles in that way was…unsettling. Probably because he more often than not sported an expression more like a kicked puppy than a teenage boy, and Jüri didn’t want him preyed upon by horny Ecuadorians.

“Okay maybe you have a point,” he conceded eventually.

“And anyway wouldn’t it be nice for Mick to get some?” Juan said, gesturing like he was proposing the most noble idea anyone had ever invented. It just made Jüri scrunch up his nose, not really wanting to think of his best friend in those terms.

“Gross,” he muttered, frowning softly, reaching down and picking up his crossword book again, finding his page and fishing the pen out from under Juan, where it had rolled in his haste to sit up.

“The answer’s Pluto by the way,” Juan said, burrowing his nose into the ticklish crook of Jüri’s neck, in a way he knew made him laugh reluctantly, before he stood up and made his way into the kitchen, Jüri watching him as he went.


End file.
